Doubts About NATO in Libya as U.S. Takes Backseat

April 1, 2011— -- Military experts fear that America's reduced role in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone will cripple efforts to keep Moammar Gadhafi's forces from battering the rag tag army trying to topple him.

They fear that without U.S. willingness to go after Gadhafi's troops and equipment from the air, and without U.S. ground controllers pinpointing targets, that the effort to shield the rebels will fail.

"The idea that the AC-130s and the A-10s and American air power is grounded unless the place goes to hell is just so unnerving that I can't express it adequately," said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. "The only thing I would ask is, please reconsider that."

Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates wondered out loud whether the NATO airstrikes can succeed without the U.S. in the lead.

"They certainly have made that commitment, and we will see," Gates said.

Gates said the U.S. would pull all combat planes from operations over Libya on Saturday. It formally ceded command and control of the operation to NATO on Thursday.

NATO announced today that in the last 24 hours, it flew 178 sorties, including 74 that were strike sorties. The other flights were surveillance or refueling flights.

In the previous 24 hours under U.S. command, the allies flew 204 sorties, including 110 strike sorties.

The British and the French, who are expected to take the lead with airstrikes, are "highly competent and they've proved it," said Anthony Cordesman, an international defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The question isn't whether they're competent. It's will they get the command and control guidance and electronic intelligence from the U.S. needed to be successful," he said.

Experts say that NATO's mission will be increasingly difficult as Gadhafi's forces, often indistinguishable from opposition rebels, become enmeshed in urban areas.

Coalition forces "captured all of what we may call the low-hanging fruit, the armored columns, those targets in obvious positions on open roads, sitting on open terrain," Shashank Joshi of the British think tank Royal United Services Institute told Reuters.

"What we may now be left with is heavy weaponry on the ground that's more difficult to find and isolate because it is next to urban targets," he said.

Cordesman said the dynamic could pose a challenge for NATO and European militaries which are not as well equipped as the U.S. with aerial surveillance technologies.

"What makes this harder and harder is that NATO's posture makes it particularly sensitive to civilian casualties," he said.

Mounting civilian casualties could weaken the coalition and add pressure to conduct airstrikes against Gadhafi forces more sparingly.